America is in dire straits, and
this is not news. We have known this for a while now, and I think we knew it in
our collective subconscious well before we really “knew” it all over CNN and
Fox News and that other stupid channel that I forget the name of.
America is in dire straits in
part because of politicians who have shirked accountability while looking
desperately around the world for someone else to blame. Well, they weren’t the
ones doing the looking actually. This was and is done by the men and women of our military.
Then, when American voters (I’d say citizens, but politicians as a general rule
do not give a capital-f Fuck about citizens unless they can fire them) realized
that our bravest men and women had been sent around the world on a wild goose
chase for a vague “enemy,” that is anywhere and everywhere, and that many of them were dying in the process, the
politicians decided to send out these big
science fiction planes called Drones that can seek & destroy this “enemy” that way. Except, by definition this enemy can be anywhere at any time and actually technically
can exist in anyone as well, lying dormant until something is pushed too far.
There is no winning a war on terrorism, not by any stretch of the imagination.
However that is just part of the
problem. I could write another scathing paragraph about the media, our country’s
richest citizens, the corporations who have outsourced like crazy or the banks
that gave a mortgage to anyone with a pulse and a 3rd-grade
education. But that’s not what I want to say today.
The other part of the problem
that is being largely ignored is US. Us. You and fucking me. Your Uncle Ned.
That co-worker who always has the runny nose. You name it. Us. The Normal
People. Average Americans.
Every day I hear people just like
me squawking at work, on the bus, at the local orgy, playing the same no-win
game that the politicians tried to play all over Iraq and Afghanistan and Pakistan
for years. Blaming Democrats. Republicans. Kenyans. Muslims. Immigrants. The
Rich. Congress. The President. All the while contributing to our very dire
straits by spending $200 on a pair of Beats headphones and $499 on an iPad for
the kids and then crying poverty because there’s no money left for a vacation
in Aruba this year.
Around this time, I usually hear
this complaint, in some form: “The American Dream isn’t real anymore. Things
used to be so much better in this country.”
Um.
When?
We can’t
ignore the fact that in today’s America minorities and women and gay people are
actually treated like human beings (For the most part. I agree that we still
have a long way to go in a lot of ways). That’s been a big step forward, and it’s
happened relatively recently given the fact that this country is 236 years old
and counting.
Do you mean the 1990s? When
everyone seemed to have everything they possibly wanted, unemployment was low
and the stock market was sky high? When the internet boom was making
23-year-old kids bazillionaires and everyone in America owned their own home?
When the economy was so great that it seemed too good to be true?
Yeah, because it WAS too good to
be true. That’s why we are where we are today. People spent too much, saved too
little and no one told them that it was wrong. Everyone spent too much,
actually, and it built up a few huge bubbles in our economy that grew and grew
and fucking burst and left us all covered in gross bad-credit ectoplasm,
Ghostbusters-style.
Or maybe you mean the simpler
time of the 1970s and 1980s?
Here’s a secret about that time
period: They weren't spending $200 on a pair of headphones. Or a piece of
plastic and glass that does neat things when you touch it. Remember that scene in
Adam Sandler’s movie “The Wedding Singer” when that guy who looks like Brendan
Fraser and is supposed to marry Drew Barrymore shows off his fancy new stereo
with a CD player? Everyone thought he was a huge douche for spending that much
money on a toy. They were logical about it, and laughed it off as what it was:
A child who didn't get everything he wanted for Christmas compensating for it as
an adult by denying himself nothing.
The good people of yesteryear didn't live like Glenn Guglia (the Brendan Fraser lookalike). They lived like
middle class people should live – modestly yet comfortably. The Family Vacation
was a major part of American life because that was the priority of the adults
in the households. They didn't buy their kids $500 toys; they took them to
Europe. Those were the values of the times, and, more importantly, the values
of the people.
The American Dream isn't lost or
gone or dead. It just isn't as simple or easy as we've diluted ourselves to
thinking. The equation was never Work Hard = Get Rich. It goes more like this:
Finish High School + Go To
College or Learn a Trade + Stay Out of Trouble for the Most Part + Get a Shitty
Job that No One Else Wants to Do + Graduate College + Work that Shitty Job for
a while Longer + Look for Less Shitty Job + Get Turned Down a Lot for Good Jobs
+ Don’t Become an Alcoholic + Finally Get a Good Job + Work Really, Really Hard
at that Good Job for a Long Time + Save Your Money + Invest Smartly + Don’t Buy
Frivolous Things + Keep Working Hard + Stay Healthy + Ask for or Apply For a
Promotion + Move Up in the Company + Keep Saving your Money + Take a Vacation +
But Not 10 Vacations + Invest Even Smarter + 401k Fund + Use your Expertise To
Make your Company Better + Get Compensated More for your Wisdom + Stay
Motivated + Suddenly Have a Great Job.
That is the path to the American
Dream of a nice house and a white picket fence and enough disposable income to piss off the neighbors. But it
does not come easy – it’s not supposed to. Wealth is a privilege. Not a right.
